HR Technology (not “tech” according to show chairman Bill Kutik) was again a success despite economic woes constricting travel budgets — or maybe it was highly attended because arrangements to get to the windy city were made a few months back. In any case, here are some key take aways:

11th Annual Analyst Panel: I was invited to participate in the highest attended analyst panel session (1,268 people to be exact) alongside other leading analysts and consultants. View the results. The topics varied from Web 2.0 to the impact this economy will have on product sales. Bill Kutik (moderator) asked the audience a series of questions with electronic voting. One interesting tidbit is that two-thirds of user companies did not expect their HR technology spend to get cut. We will have the exact numbers later this week — can’t wait to see the raw numbers.

Monster today announced their acquisition of Mountain View, Calif. based Trovix for $73 million in an all cash deal. Trovix was known as an applicant tracking system (ATS) vendor and have amassed over 40 customers during their short tenure, but that was not their passion. Instead, they were fully focused on perfecting and innovating search technologies. Their goal was to bridge the gap between jobs and candidates and find the perfect match for both. So what does Monster get and what are they going to do with Trovix?